Marketer optimism rises in April

24 April 2014

LONDON: Optimism among global marketers increased in April, with a strong rise in mobile spending set to underpin a general increase in budgets, according to the latest data from Warc's Global Marketing Index (GMI).

The headline GMI figure, which takes into account marketers' expectations in three key areas – marketing budgets, staffing levels and trading conditions – was up 1.1 points to 58.3.

Warc's GMI is a unique indicator of the state of the global marketing industry. Each month, it tracks conditions among marketers within their organisation and region - a reading of 50 indicates no change from the previous month, while a reading of 60 indicates rapid growth.

Headline GMI for the Americas reached 59.9, up 2.4 points from March, making this the most optimistic region. The reading for Europe reached 57.5, up 0.5 month on month, while Asia Pacific's reading stayed flat from March on 57.4.

Marketing budgets picked up across the board, showing a global 1.4 point monthly gain to 55.6. This total was boosted by the strongest expected growth recorded for mobile for two years.

Regionally, Europe registered the greatest uptick for marketing budgets across all media, up 2.8 points to 55.1. Elsewhere, the increases were more modest – up 0.5 to 55.6 in Asia Pacific and up 0.2 to 55.7 in the Americas – but the trend was clear.

Marketers were still very optimistic about trading conditions, the second component of the headline GMI, with this index on 61.1, although this figure was a 1.4 fall from that recorded in March. In Europe, the index dropped 4.6 points to 58.9 in April, possibly due to the volatility surrounding the situation in Ukraine.

Asia-Pacific was also down, although the 2.8 dip left it on 60.4, while the Americas leapt ahead 3.1 points to 63.5, a level last seen two years ago in April 2012.

The index of staffing levels, the third and final component of the headline GMI, recovered strongly across all regions, up 3.9 to 60.5 in the Americas, 3.2 points to 58.4 in Europe and 2.3 points to 56.3 in Asia Pacific.

"This is another month of strong data, signalling that marketers are becoming increasingly optimistic within the broader economic improvement," said Suzy Young, Data and Journals Director at Warc.

"The very sharp increase in planned mobile spend is especially striking this month, and signals that the general shift in marketing budgets towards digital could actually be accelerating in the months ahead," she added.